Between the Ears: On the Trail of the Snail – review

Monday 13 December 2010 03.00 EST
First published on Monday 13 December 2010 03.00 EST

Between the Ears – On the Trail of the Snail (Radio 3, Saturday) was, we heard at the start, "a sequence of audio adventures": five pieces by acclaimed radio producers from around the world. These short works, decidedly experimental and diverse in approach, were then linked together by producer Alan Hall with music that was simultaneously jangly and exuberant.

Given that the shared theme was Matisse's paper cutout collage, The Snail, this approach made plenty of sense. Hall's connecting interludes could equate with the white space around the blocks of primary colour. The five micro-features shared an alluring, brief intensity and brought to radio the same mix of unthreatening delight and rather more complex responses that the Matisse seems to invite.

Pejk Malinovski featured a clip of Gertrude Stein reading and biologist Ronald Chase talking about the sex life of snails (in short, things move slowly: "They sit motionless and they copulate for seven hours; it takes seven hours for the sperm to transfer.") Dinah Bird's Helix was a kinetic soundpiece, all shards of noise and a sense of coiled spiral energy, while Sherre DeLys walked through a North American woodland with an artist to discuss Matisse's use of colour. I liked the dog they had with them, Blossom, and her funny muted growl. Maybe she just doesn't get modern art.